High Octane
Page 46
He looked over at her. “Why don’t you come, too?”
“To the ballet? Oh no, no, no.”
“Ah,” he said. “Painful memories?”
“No it’s not that. Well, yes. I don’t know, Adam, I haven’t been in almost fifteen years. That’s all behind me. I haven’t even watched a ballet since, not live, not on TV. I couldn’t bring myself to see others doing … oh, I’m being ridiculous.”
“Not at all,” he said softly. “I know what it’s like to want to be doing, not watching others doing. I watched heaps of F1 in the hospital last year. It wasn’t fun to see Reece getting the checkered flag while the doctors told me I might have problems walking again.”
“Yes, but you made it. You persevered.”
“And so did you. Maybe not with ballet, but you have other talents, and you’re using them. And you’re in a good place, Vivienne. If you were a ballerina, you’d be almost in retirement now.”
“Yeah, that’s an encouraging way of looking at it.” Nobody had put it quite this way before. “Ballet’s not for the old, that’s for sure.”
“Neither’s racing.”
She shot him a look this time. What did he mean by that? At twenty-nine he could have another ten years at least. “But you’re not old.”
“Thirty next March.”
“Well, spare a thought … I’m January.”
“Any plans to celebrate?” He caught her eye.
“No. I hadn’t planned on telling anyone either, so why I’ve let it slip to you I have no idea.”
Adam’s cheek muscle did that twitching thing again.
“But you’re not thinking of retiring, are you?” she pressed.
“Not before I win.”
“And when’s that?”
“November.”
“I see.” She knew there was no other reasonable answer to that one.
He sighed and focused on the traffic ahead. At the ticket office, he got out without a word.
Their trip back to the hotel was filled with long silences and trite remarks about the city; the exhilarating atmosphere of before had thinned out to a wispy kind of tension. She tried to think about her own job instead of the effect he was having on her. She’d do well to pull herself up another greasy rung of the journalism ladder before she made a complete laughingstock of herself.
• • •
Mack sat behind his desk at the Montreal studio and folded his meaty forearms. “What?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Viv insisted.
He scratched the side of his ear, and his eyes took on a pleading quality, the look of someone who wanted to believe what he was hearing, but was having immense difficulties overcoming the last hurdle of doubt. “He just agreed?”
“Yes. An hour ago.”
Mack blew out a noisy breath. “Not bad, not bad at all. Day of the race, you say?” He scrambled to enter the date on his iPad calendar. “Okay, the studio’s free.”
“No, no. I think we’ll have to do it on his terms,” she said. “His location.”
“Which is?”
“Um, he didn’t really say.”
“You didn’t really ask,” Mack grumbled. “Who else is he talking to?”
“Pretty sure it’s just me.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I don’t know!” Viv said, louder than she’d intended. Startled colleagues’ faces swung around to gawk, and not all the glances were friendly. Yes, she’d achieved what some of them hadn’t managed in two years. She’d have preferred for Mack to be a little more discreet about her success.
Mack’s phone rang. He waved her dismissal. “All right. Nice work, don’t screw it up.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” she said, turning on her heel, suppressing a whoop of triumph.
She caught Sarah’s eye, and the technician gave her the thumbs up signal. The studio was in full operating mode, getting ready for the qualifiers. All of a sudden, life seemed a whole lot easier.
She passed a group of journalists lounging by the exit, inspecting an inventory list. She sensed an undercurrent of something as she passed.
“Hey, Viv. Did I hear that right—about Fontaine giving you an interview?” a thirty-something, rather plastic-looking blonde asked her. Catherine Price, an anchor for the daytime program.
“Yes.” Viv smiled and reached for the door handle.
“Not bad,” another woman added, a Catherine look-alike even though they weren’t at all related. The wonders of modern cosmetic surgery.
“Thanks,” Viv said, pulling the door open and striding out. Before the door closed behind her, Catherine’s crystal-clear, BBC-worthy voice rang out. “Well, here’s guessing what she had to do to get that.”
“Ho, ho,” said the other. “I guess Mack’s little gamble paid off after all.”
The door closed on their laughter. Yeah, yeah, the F1 slut—could they be any more original? Some PR on her own image wouldn’t go amiss, if that’s all they could say about her.
And that image didn’t include traipsing after yet another Formula One driver, getting caught on camera stepping out of the Montreal Ballet house, for example. Adam had seemed taken aback at her refusal to join him, and it had been a knee-jerk reaction on her part, but surely he understood the sacrifice she’d make to give in to such temptation? She’d be paying for it with her reputation and her job, possibly for the rest of her life. Dating a third Formula One driver would look to all the world like a pathetic addiction.
Chapter 14
Adam sat in the cockpit and counted down the seconds. Engineers still milled around the cars. “Remember the fifteen-second rule,” Chad intoned over the headphones. “No mechanics can touch the car less than fifteen before the start.”
There followed an eerie silence except for a low static as the engineers all rushed away from the grid. Adam felt grateful for this moment of calm. Soon there’d be a cacophony of voices in his ears, telling him what to do.
Bruce’s voice hummed, slow and steady. “Twenty seconds … fifteen seconds … ten seconds …”
The lights were off. He pushed down hard. Tires screeched and engines wailed their high-pitched screams of resistance. The air filled with thick fumes. No mishaps.Good sign. He placed second in the qualifiers, three-hundredths behind Reece. The GTX felt good today, but the Montreal track was wet. He was on hard tires—so was everyone—but he’d switch to soft halfway for more speed.
“Adam, that was perfect,” Bruce said.
Adam tailed Reece like a love-struck groupie. This was a replay of Monaco two years ago, catching Reece’s splashes—a horrible way to spend a race. But Reece tended to get fatigued around lap forty when tailed relentlessly like this. Adam had to hang on and focus through the difficult visibility and play the tactics right. Chad and Bruce were better tacticians than Reece’s guys.
Fifteen laps later, Adam was still staring at the same sight, dizzy from the effort—a migraine was threatening. The sun had come out with unexpected force, and the track had dried up.
“You’re coming in,” Bruce said. “It’s safe for the soft tires now.”
“Roger that.” Adam swerved into the pits. If he did it just one lap before Reece, he’d gain the advantage.
“Good going,” Bruce said. “He hasn’t stopped yet.”
Adam was too keyed up to answer. He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel in agitation as the engineers changed the tires. “Come on, come on,” he urged them. Was it his imagination or were they slower than usual?
“Shit,” he heard.
“What?”
“We got the left and right rear tires mixed up here,” Bruce shouted. “Hang on, Adam.”
Oh for the love of Christ!
“Go, go, go,” Bruce yelled, making the signal for task completion. Adam slammed down and rejoined the field. That was one disaster of a pit stop. It could cost him the race.
“Where am I?” he asked anxiously.
“You’re in fourth. But no one el
se has changed yet, mate. You’ll make up the time. Revs 7 now, mate. Revs 7.”
On his faster tires, he overtook Hänninen and Voutilainen, who always seemed to drive in tandem, then Anderson. He breezed past Reece, who hadn’t changed his wets yet. He was in the lead now, and he’d be there to stay.
“You’ve got a lead of four seconds, mate, that’s perfect.”
Take that, Reece! Another twenty-five points would give him a nice margin. And a psychological advantage.
But then something seemed wrong. Terribly wrong. Before any monitors could signal, he felt it in the fuel transmission; the acceleration wasn’t powerful enough. Why it didn’t show up before he couldn’t tell, but this was a disaster. Could he risk going on? Pushing a little harder? Hoping it’d hold? Christ, no …
He did another lap in the agony of indecision, ignoring the hullaballoo in his headphones—his team in disarray as the impossible had happened. It was all meaningless now; he’d have to stop. Bates was behind him, a five-second gap or so, with Reece behind him. Gaining rapidly. Jesus. Ten laps to go.
“Will she hold?” Bruce asked.
“No.”
Fuel injection. The readings on the instruments told him nothing, but he was sure. The engine lost responsiveness, and his driving would be inaccurate, unpredictable, dangerous to others. Impossible, but it was happening. Coming up to the fifteenth corner, Adam knew it was over.
“I’m coming in.”
In the pits he flung up his visor. “Fuel injection. Get me out of here.”
The engineers swarmed around the vehicle with concerned faces. Bruce waved them back and came up to Adam. “You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” The steering wheel was lifted and Adam leapt out.
He let rip on the team. “Who checked it last? Who’s responsible? This is not a wear and tear issue. This was faulty at the start. And how the hell could you get the rear tires mixed up on the pit stop? How is that even possible?”
His face was bathed in sweat, and he wiped it off with his forearm. Journalists and cameramen were sprinting over. Adam turned away and retreated into a crowd of engineers. Bruce came up to him and grabbed his elbow. “Mate. Just go, before they’re all over us. We’ll talk later.”
Adam stormed off, torn by frustration and anger. He wanted to get into the safety of the VIP area, away from the vultures.
Sorry, Eddie. I can’t believe it either.
• • •
Viv couldn’t believe it as she watched the replay of the green figure storming off the circuit. She felt awful for Adam but even worse for herself. Once a driver had a no finish, he was a volatile animal, out of bounds.
And that meant no interview.
“And he’s gone, folks. Fontaine is out. Fontaine is out of the race,” Rick yelled with unconcealed relish. “This will be his first did-not-finish this season. Oh, what a bitter disappointment for Fontaine, who would no doubt have held onto that first position had this not happened. Depending on how the rest of the race plays out, he may find himself slipping down a notch or two in the overall rankings. Viv, what do you think?”
“He’s certainly not going to be happy,” she said, trying to shake her somber mood. A driver with a DNF was like a footballer with a red card, a bear with a sore head.
“It must be a serious problem for him to give up like this. Let’s hope to find out the reason as soon as we can. Meanwhile, Bates has charged ahead of Marlowe, and if nothing else happens, that will be the final placing.”
Adam would be raging. He’d clam up. The way Ronan and Maddux used to stew and burn and shut the door when a race hadn’t gone their way, especially when they’d been leading and something had happened to kick them out of the race. Those were the worst times. She’d known enough to make herself scarce, to do her own girly thing on those nights—stay in her room and have a nice scented bath, read a book, forget that she was dating a Formula One driver. She didn’t have that option this time.
The race was over. “And after three races, it’s 72 points to Marlowe, 68 to Fontaine, and 63 to Bates,” Rick yodeled. “Fontaine has slipped off his top position. This is such a close championship so far, folks. It truly is neck and neck as we head over to Hungary in two weeks.”
Viv waited for the signal from the director and sighed with relief. Rick poured some mineral water into her paper cup. “It’ll be nice to start the Euro tour next week, won’t it? Hungary, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Spain. Three whole months in the same time zone. We won’t know ourselves.”
She managed a tight smile. Under normal circumstances, she’d share his enthusiasm, but as things stood now, she probably wouldn’t even see the Hungaroring. She packed up and headed down to the VIP tent to get some interviews.
• • •
To her surprise, Adam sat hunched at the bar, eyes glued to the screen replaying the race. She moved along the edge of the crowd so she could observe him from a safe distance. There, she ordered a double gin and studied him from her high barstool. People came up, clapped him on the back or the shoulder, exchanged a few words, nodded and then melted back into the crowd. No one stuck around. He may as well be covered in people-repellent.
She gulped down the gin only to realize it was a stupid idea on an empty stomach. She texted Liam the race result because he’d said he wouldn’t have Internet access in his boring meeting, and he always wanted to be the first to know. She smiled, picturing her younger brother reading her message under the boardroom table.
MAR, BAT, AND, NJU.
FON had a DNF!
“Hello,” a crisp male voice resonated in her ear. A voice she now recognized immediately.
“Stop sneaking up on me, Adam.” Seeing his exhausted expression, the tightened line of his mouth, she told herself to be cautious with her words, not flippant. To tread very, very softly.
The barman handed them both a paper cup of ice water. She sunk hers in one unladylike gulp.
He finished his at the same time. The cut on his forehead was bruising yellow around his bandage. He looked even paler than usual, and there were purple shadows under his eyes.
She exhaled. “I’m sorry about the race.”
“Not exactly a stellar moment.”
“I’m not going to hound you about it now, if that’s what you were wondering. I realize you need some space just now.”
“You don’t want to interview me because I lost the race?” He crumpled the paper cup in his hand. “Why not?”
She wadded her own cup for good measure. He still refused to make eye contact. “Well—do you actually want it now?”
“I promised you an interview.” He made a move to go.
“Okay … okay.” She tried to keep panic out of her voice. This was her one shot, and she wasn’t going to let his exhausted, bitter expression shake her. “I mean, if you’re sure ...”
“Take it or leave it, Vivienne.” He inched his body toward her, and she felt another wave of alarm. On her high stool, she was at direct eye level with him.
“Yes, of course. Will you come to our studio for it?”
“No. I need privacy.”
“Well, where would you suggest?”
“I’d suggest my room, but”—his mouth twitched—“inappropriate.”
A warm sensation enveloped her—just like every time he was this close to her—and he seemed to be making a habit of it lately.
“Very inappropriate,” she agreed. “What about my room then?”
He shifted backward in surprise. She counted one blink in the silence and waited for the next. She hadn’t a clue why she’d said that.
“Your room?”
“Yes, I can set the cameras and mics up myself. It would still be a televised interview.”
He remained impassive. “What number?
“Um, 3089. Shall I write it down for you?”
“No need. I’ll be there once I get cleaned up. An hour from now.” He turned quickly and made his way toward the back exit.
Had s
he just agreed to interview him in her bedroom? One hour from now? Oh boy, she’d need all the help she could get to set up a makeshift studio in that time. She pulled out her phone again and started calling.
Chapter 15
After Sarah and Joe the cameraman left her bedroom fifty frantic minutes of equipment mounting later, Viv rifled through the clothes in the narrow hotel wardrobe. She held up a blue silk blouse to the light to check for stains and grabbed some safe black trousers. Much better than the confining skirt she had on now. She changed quickly and opened the window for some fresh air.
Oh God, her nerves were all out of kilter. She wanted something personal, a whole set of revelations about the man. But after a no-finish was abysmal timing to ask Adam such things.
She switched on the TV to find repeat coverage on the race and to discover the reason for the car’s failure. Fuel ignition they were saying. Something that shouldn’t happen. From her experience, this kind of preventable error made the drivers even more irritated.
A knock sounded on her door, a stronger rap than the typical room service one. She slapped down the lid of her laptop and jumped up.
From her stocking feet sans high heels, Adam towered over her. She felt vulnerable but hid it by ushering him into the room. “Would you like a drink? I have a delectable selection from the mini bar, with which you are no doubt well acquainted.”
“Thanks, brought my own.” He produced a whiskey bottle from behind his back, and strode over to the chairs by the balcony where she’d set up an impromptu interview studio.
She peered at the bottle. “Ardmore. Not bad.”
“Want some?”
“No thanks.”
He inspected the microphone setup with a critical expression. He then backed off to look out the window.
“Your view’s better than mine,” he said. “Christ.” Adam swung around. “What’s that?”
Her phone was ringing, the squawking ducks ring tone, in crescendo. She flapped her hands looking for it. He located the phone on the bedside table and handed it to her, wincing at the noise.